‘Sire, give me leave to go to him.’ That was Téligny speaking.

Charles said nothing He continued to stare before him. There was no peace anywhere. No one was safe. There was no peace.

‘Shall I never have a moment’s peace?’ he sobbed.

‘Sire, Sire, I beg of you . . . leave to go to him.’

‘Go, go!’ cried Charles. ‘Oh, God in Heaven, what have they done to my friend?’

Guise was at his elbow. ‘Sire, it would be well to send doctors. Something may yet be done.’

Charles’ voice rose to a scream. ‘Yes, yes. Send them all. Send Paré. Paré will save him. I myself will go. I . .

He was sobbing as he ran into the palace.


* * *

Catherine was sitting quietly in her apartments when Madalenna came running in with the news.

‘Madame, the Admiral has been shot.’

‘Shot?’ she was exultant, but her eyes expressed horror, ‘Madelenna, you lie. It cannot be.’

‘Oh yes, Madame. He was on his way to the Rue Béthisy from the palace when a shot was fired through the window of an empty house.’

‘But this is terrible.’ She did not move; she was thinking: I will send the head to Rome. It should arrive almost as soon as news of the wedding. ‘And . . . who fired the shot? Have you discovered that, Madelenna?’

‘It is not yet known, Madame, but the house is next to that of the Chanoine of Saint-German l’Auxerrois, and the Chanoine was once a tutor of the Guises.’

‘And . . . have they caught the assassin?’

‘I do not know, Madame.’

‘Then go and see what you can discover. Go into the streets and hear what people are saying.’

Catherine was ready to meet the King when he came into the palace. His eyes were wild and she noted the familiar twitching of the lips, the foam on the mouth.

‘Have you heard? Have you heard?’ he shouted to his mother. ‘They have tried to kill my dear friend, the Admiral. They have tried to kill the great Gaspard de Coligny.’

‘If they have tried and failed, my son, let us be thankful. If he is not dead we must save him.’

‘We must save him. Paré! Paré! Where is Paré? Do not stand staring at me, dwarf. Go . . . go and bring Paré to me. Let all go . . . All go and find Paré. There may not be a moment to lose. When you have found him send him to the house of the Admiral. Tell him to lose no time . . . or he shall answer to me. Mother, I must go there at once. I must tell him to live . . . to live. . .’

‘My son, you must calm yourself. You cannot leave in this state, my darling. You must be guided by me. Wait . . . wait until there is more news. Send Paré by all means, but do not yet go yourself. You do not know how ill he is. Wait awhile, I beg of you. You cannot suffer more shocks this day.’

He was tearing at his coat; he was sobbing wildly. ‘He was my father. I trusted him. They have killed him. He must have suffered cruelly. Oh my God, how he suffers. There will be blood . . . his blood . . .

‘And you must not see it,’ soothed Catherine. ‘Wait, my son. Ah, here is Paré. Paré, the King’s orders are that you go immediately to the house of the Admiral and . . . save his life. Go . . . go at once.’

‘Yes, Paré, go . . . go! Do not delay, but go now.’

Catherine said to her dwarf: ‘Call Madeleine and Mademoiselle Touchet. Tell them to come to the King’s apartments at once:

Between them they did their best to soothe the tortured King.


* * *

All the chief Huguenots were assembled at the house in the Rue Béthisy. Téligny, Henry of Navarre, the Prince of Condé, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld waited in an outer chamber. Nicholas Muss, Gaspard’s oldest and most faithful servant, and Merlin, his minister, remained in the sick-room. A message had been sent to Montgomery at Saint-Germain. Outside the house a crowd of Huguenots were gathered; there were angry murmurings in that crowd and the name of Guise was repeated again and again.

A cheer of hope went up when Ambroise Paré, the greatest surgeon in Paris and a Huguenot, was seen hurrying to the house. The crowd parted to make a way for him

‘The good God aid you, Monsieur Paré. May you snatch the life of our great leader from these wicked men who would murder him.’

Paré said he would do his best and hurried into the house.

He found the Admiral very weak. The wound in itself did not appear to be a mortal one, but Coligny had lost a good deal of blood and there was a possibility that the bullet, which was lodged in his shoulder, might be poisoned.

Navarre and Condé, Téligny and Rochefoucauld followed Paré into the room.

‘Messieurs,’ said Paré, ‘it may be necessary to take off the arm. If that could satisfactorily be done, the danger would be considerably lessened.’

Coligny had heard. ‘If that is your opinion,’ he said resignedly, ‘then let it be done.°

Paré examined the arm more thoroughly, washing the stains away and prodding the tissue. He smiled. ‘Not so bad as I at first thought,’ he said. ‘The arm is sound enough. If I remove what is left of the finger and extract the bullet, that may be all that is necessary.’

It was going to be an excruciating ordeal, for there was no opium available, and Coligny must look on while Paré performed the operation with a pair of scissors. Muss and Téligny held the Admiral who, with his pale face and bloodless lips already had the appearance of a corpse; yet it was Téligny who groaned; it was Muss who sobbed.

‘Have courage, my friends,’ said the Admiral. ‘The pain is not yet such as cannot be borne, and it will soon be over. All that comes to us is through the will of God.’

Merlin whispered: ‘Yes, my friends. Let us thank God for sparing the Admiral’s life, for sparing his head and his understanding, rather than reproach Him for what has happened.’

The stump of forefinger was at length amputated, and after several very painful attempts, Paré extracted the bullet. The Admiral lay back fainting in the arms of Muss and Téligny. He longed for unconsciousness to escape the pain, but he had disciplined himself for so long, and the needs of his body had always been sacrificed for the good of the cause. He was afraid—not so much of his own sufferings, but of what this attempted assassination meant to all his friends and followers now assembled in Paris.

He murmured: ‘I have now . . . no real enemies . . . but the Guises. But remember, my friends, it may not have been they who struck this blow. We must be sure before making accusations.

He heard a murmur about him. Someone said: ‘We will go and kill the Guises. Shall they escape punishment for what they have done to the Admiral?’

Coligny tried to lift a hand and groaned. ‘Nay . I beg of you. No bloodshed . . . now. That would indeed be the ruin of France.’

Paré whispered: ‘Leave him now. He must rest.’

All left but Téligny, Muss, Paré and Merlin.

There were moments during that pain-racked morning when Coligny could not remember where he was. At one time he thought he was at Châtillon with his, first wife, and that Andelot had just been born. Then the child seemed to be François, not Andelot. Now he was hearing of the death of that other Andelot. Then he was with Jacqueline and Jeanne of Navarre in his rose gardens.

‘Rest, rest!’ begged Paré. ‘That is what you must do. You are strong, Monsieur l’Amiral, but you need rest for you have lost much blood.’

But the Admiral could not rest; and when those staunch Huguenots, and Maréchal de Cossé with Damville and Villars, called to see him, he remembered what had been worrying him.

‘I am afraid, my friends, afraid, but not of death.’ And then it seemed to him that his dazed consciousness was granted clarity. In his mind’s eye he saw the young King, the bewildered madness in his eyes, and holding him by the hand was the woman in black with the smiling, evil face.

He must warn the King. That was what he had to do. He must free the King from her whom he knew to be his evil influence.

‘I am not afraid to die,’ he said, ‘if die I must. But before doing so I must see the King. It may be that some will try to keep him from me. But my greatest wish is that I may see the King before I die . . . and see him alone.’


* * *

Charles waited in gloomy apprehension for something to happen. His mother refused to leave him; he knew that she was determined that he should do nothing without her consent.

His first visitors were the King of Navarre and the Prince of Condé, who had come to the Louvre direct from the Admiral’s bedside.

‘What news? What news?’ demanded Charles.

‘Bad news, Sire.’

‘He is . . . dead?’

‘No, Sire, but badly wounded. Monsieur Paré thinks that there may be a faint hope that he will pull through. But he has lost much blood.’

‘Thank God he is not dead,’ said Catherine,

The King wept. ‘It is I who am wounded,’ he moaned.

‘It is the whole of France,’ said Catherine. ‘Ah, Messieurs, who is safe? They will come and attack the King in his own bed soon.’

Her eyes were on her shuddering son. Leave this to me, said those eyes. You are in danger, but all will be well if you leave this to me.

‘Sire,’ said the Prince of Condé, ‘we found the gun in that empty house. It was still smoking. And it belonged to one of the guards of the Duke of Anjou.’

Catherine gasped. ‘It must have been stolen,’ she said. ‘And to whom does this house belong?’

‘I do not know, Madame, but what we have discovered is that it was next door to that of the Chanoine de Villemur.’ ‘And how did the assassin get away?’